During the manufacture of electrical connectors, integrated circuits and other electrical or electronic devices, the devices are stored in and transferred to and from various types of equipment for carrying out different manufacturing or assembling steps. For instance, the devices may be assembled, tested, inspected, and the like, during which the devices are stored, protected and handled in protective storage tubes between various manufacturing processes or machines. Most such tubes are fabricated of extruded plastic material, but the tubes may be made of metal or other appropriate material. A "rack" of the tubes may be loaded into a "magazine" of an assembly machine, with the devices being dispensed seriatim from each individual tube, whereafter the tube is discarded for dispensing devices from the successive tube in the rack.
As an example, only, such storage tubes may hold as many as twenty-five or more electrical devices for handling during manufacture. When processing is complete, the devices also may be shipped to customers in the tubes. A very large electronic manufacturer may process thousands and thousands of electronic devices in any given lot. For every one-thousand electronic devices, forty storage tubes are used. A plurality of the tubes normally are stored in a bulk container or tote box which is transferred, along with the related paperwork, between separate manufacturing processes or to the customer.
Heretofore, after the electronic devices have been completely processed or finally used by a customer, the storage tubes have been discarded. In other words, the tubes have been considered as disposable items. However, with ever-increasing manufacturing volume, and with ever-increasing environmental considerations, it has become expedient to reuse or recycle such storage tubes.
Heretofore, one packaging system has utilized a pair of elongated stop rods for holding the electronic devices in their respective tubes, and to hold a plurality of the tubes for conjoint manual manipulation. More particularly, each tube is provided with an aperture therethrough near each opposite end thereof. When a "rack" of tubes are assembled with a plurality of tubes in a generally parallel juxtaposition, the stop rods are inserted through the aligned apertures of all of the tubes in the rack to close-off the ends of the tubes and to allow for manual handling of an entire rack of tubes interconnected by the rods.
The stop rods have proven effective for holding the electronic devices in their respective tubes in many applications. However, in some applications, particularly when the tubes contain delicate electronic components (e.g. ferrite cores), it is desirable to prevent any movement between the components within the tubes. The elongated stop rods, alone, cannot prevent such movement, and the delicate electronic components can be damaged during handling of the tubes. In order to solve these problems, other packaging systems have employed stopper plugs insertable into one end of each storage tube to push all of the components toward the other end of the tube and, thereby, prevent any movement therebetween. A problem with such systems that employ stopper plugs is that once the rack of tubes arrives at the assembly point, each stopper plug must be removed individually from each storage tube and this requires unnecessary time and effort. In fact, an individual stopper plug can get stuck within its respective tube and cause more delays in the processing procedures.
The present invention is directed to solving the problems outlined above by a packaging system which uses both stop rods and stopper plugs in a unique arrangement.